Aerial spraying to kill mosquitoes in parts of Plymouth and surrounding towns is tentatively scheduled to begin Tuesday, said Ashley Randle, the state’s commissioner of agriculture. The spraying will take place inland, from dusk to dawn. The effort is aimed at preventing people and animals from potentially being infected with Eastern equine encephalitis, a deadly […]
Category: Environment & Health
Posted inEnvironment & Health
EEE threat forces closure of Plymouth’s public fields and parks from dusk to dawn
The town has ordered the closing of all public fields and parks in Plymouth from dusk to dawn until further notice, citing the high risk of Eastern equine encephalitis, a potentially fatal disease spread by mosquitoes. The closings will apply to all sports leagues and organizations that use Plymouth’s outdoor recreational facilities – as well […]
Posted inEnvironment & Health
NRC says Holtec didn’t take measures to prevent worker’s radiation exposure
Federal inspectors found that Holtec Decommissioning International, the company dismantling the Pilgrim nuclear power plant, failed to establish controls to prevent a worker from being exposed to radiation earlier this year. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission, however, found the violation of “very low-level safety significance” when they visited the closed plant on several occasions between May […]
Posted inEnvironment & Health
Covid has made a comeback in Plymouth this summer
Plymouth has been hit especially hard by the summer wave of Covid that has washed over the state and the country, according to data collected by the state. But even though the virus has made a comeback here – with more people seeking medical treatment – most cases have not been severe, according to medical […]
Posted inEnvironment & Health
State puts Plymouth at high risk for EEE
The state has raised Plymouth’s risk level for Eastern equine encephalitis to high after a horse here was diagnosed with the disease, the first animal case of EEE reported in Massachusetts this year. As of late Tuesday, Carver and Middleborough were the only other communities with a high-risk level for EEE, according to the state […]
Posted inEnvironment & Health
Holtec doesn’t need a permit to evaporate radioactive water from Pilgrim plant
The state says Holtec Decommissioning International, the company that is disassembling the Pilgrim plant site in Manomet, does not need a permit to evaporate radioactive water from the former nuclear power station. That determination – made in a July 18 letter to Holtec from Seth Pickering, deputy regional director of the Bureau of Air and […]
Posted inEnvironment & Health
State won’t let Holtec dump radioactive wastewater into Cape Cod Bay
The state has denied Holtec Decommissioning International permission to dump up to 1.1 million gallons of treated radioactive wastewater from the former Pilgrim nuclear power station into Cape Cod Bay. Holtec is decommissioning the Pilgrim plant in Manomet, which stopped generating electricity in 2019. As part of its plan, the New Jersey-based company asked the […]
Posted inEnvironment & Health
Holtec disputes anonymous claim that a worker was exposed to excess radiation at Pilgrim site
The Nuclear Regulatory Commission says it has no evidence that workers at the shuttered Pilgrim nuclear power plant, which is in the long process of being decommissioned, were overexposed to radiation, despite a whistleblower’s claim made in a recent anonymous letter to state officials. In an email to the Independent, NRC spokesperson Neil Sheehan said […]
Posted inEnvironment & Health
Plovers will force restrictions, but July 3rd White Horse celebration is still on
Officials say bonfires and fireworks won’t be allowed on about a half mile stretch of the beach.
Posted inEnvironment & Health
Discolored and smelly. That’s how some Ponds of Plymouth residents describe their water.
Celeste Harrington, a Ponds of Plymouth resident since 2003, remembers when the water was fine. “Until Aquarion,” she said. “You could drink it out of the faucet. It tasted good.” Now, however, her water is “sometimes brown,” Harrington said, and “it always smells like bleach.” Other residents of the massive South Plymouth subdivision say […]